Sumela Monastery

Sumela clings to a vertical rock face three hundred metres above the Altındere valley, in forest so wet and green that it feels closer to the Caucasus than to central Anatolia. Tradition dates its founding to the fourth century, and it remained in use until the population exchange of 1923.

The heart of the complex is the rock church, whose interior and outer walls are covered with frescoes layered across centuries — Byzantine work overpainted in the eighteenth century, much of it damaged by looters and weather during the decades the site stood empty.

After years of closure for stabilisation work the monastery has reopened in stages. The approach itself is memorable: a steep path through beech and fir, with the buildings appearing and disappearing in the mist that hangs in this valley for much of the year.